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Biography

About the work

Historical background

Born in Shanghai in 1935, Gu Fu-Sheng moved to Taiwan with his family in 1948. His father is General Gu Zhutong, the famous journalist Gu An-Sheng’s brother. As an introvert man of few words, he graduated from the Department of Fine Arts at National Taiwan Normal University in 1958. When he was still at school, he had joined “The Fifth Month Art Group” and become an important figure in the group. In 1961, he received the Honorary Award of San Paolo International Biennial Exhibit, Brazil. In the same year, he went to Paris for further studies. In 1963, he moved to the United States of America. Gu’s early paintings feature non-figurative style and mounting technique. He has also explored the abstract form as his artistic expression in his paintings for a short period of time. Apart from the mounting technique, however, he returned to focus more on the symbolic human figures in the works after 1965. Throughout his artistic career, “human” has always been the major theme in his paintings, which all visualize the uncertainty and the profound understanding of life.

The painting used to belong to the collection of Shiy Der Chin. Later, Shiy Der Chin Foundation donated the painting to the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts. It is one of Gu Fu-Sheng’s early works, featuring his typical style which adopts a semi-abstract way to distort and elongate the faceless human figures. Although “human figure” is the main theme of the painting, the only visible parts are the body and the two hands held together in the dark obscure colors, which seems to reveal an uncertain alienation with the touch of lonely melancholy.

As an important member of the Fifth Month Art Group, Gu Fu-Sheng left Taiwan in 1961. Therefore, in spite of his effort to promote modern art in Taiwan, he had not been through the whole modern art movement from the beginning to the end. In the modern art movement, he still maintained his unique personal belief in art. His artistic concept has been greatly influenced by modernism and existentialism, while the spiritual expression thus becomes the focus of his artistic practice. He is not particularly interested in social issues. Instead, what he always cares about is the subject about human. He has once said that “what I paint is how people feel about the inner and the outer worlds – the interpersonal relationship, and human’s relationship with the surrounding world as well as nature.” In his painting, the artist creates a world between the reality and the subconscious unreality where the dream meets the fantasy. All these years, Gu Fu-Sheng has never stopped painting. Without any particular purpose, he paints because it is his pure instinct. The human figures in his early works represent a sense of loneliness, while the recent ones feature vivid colors as if he is attempting to capture the dance-like movement. Joyful and bright, the optimistic atmosphere praises the energy of life.